 Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here at CSIS. For those of you who have not made your first visit to the building, I offer you a special welcome. Before we get started, I want to point out the emergency exits through the main doors in which you came today. Also around the corner to the left, there's another emergency exit. And then in the back left corner near the little lounge area, there's an exit there as well. My name is Tom Sanderson. I am the director of the Transnational Threats Project here at CSIS. Happy to welcome you here. We are currently, as a little bit of background, conducting two studies that are ongoing. Foreign Fighter Study, looking at Turkey, looking at Tunisia, looking at several other nations and the phenomenon of foreign fighters. Just had an interesting conversation with Steve Kappus about privacy and the foreign fighter issue and our values. And I think maybe we'll get to that today. We're also looking at militancy across the Sahel region with our Africa program run by Jennifer Cook. We'll make a couple field visits there in the fall. Before I get started, I want to recognize a few folks who've joined us. Judge William Webster, the former CIA and FBI director and also the director of the Transnational Threats Project Senior Steering Committee is here. John McGaffin, the senior advisor to the program. Ron Marks as well and John Nelson. And over here, Ambassador Claudia Fritchie from Lichtenstein. Thank you for joining us. And I'd also like to welcome Dick O'Neill, one of our advisors who's sitting in the back. Let me first start off with a brief bios on our two guests today. Very happy to have such luminaries here to discuss what we're covering with ISIS in the degrade and defeat exercise we're doing today. David Ignatius to my right, associate editor and columnist for the Washington Post. It was an incredible career in journalism, long and distinguished, including since 2003, twice weekly, globally distributed column on global politics, economics, and international affairs. He was the executive director of the International, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, now known as the International New York Times. He was the foreign editor of the Post from 1990-92. And for the Wall Street Journal, David served as a reporter, Middle East correspondent, and his chief diplomatic correspondent. He's published frequently in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and others. David is also the author of nine novels, including Body of Lies, which was made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. His latest novel, The Director, is about hacking and espionage, certainly a timely topic. He's a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School's Belfer Center and is taught as an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. Stephen Kappas to my left is currently a partner and chief operating officer of Torch Hill Investment Partners in Washington, DC. He retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as deputy director after 30 years of service. From 2006 to 2010, he was directly involved in the leadership and management of all elements of the agency under two different directors and two presidential administrations. Mr. Kappas served as deputy director of operations for the CIA, the senior most position in our nation's clandestine services. During that period, he led over one-third of the CIA's globally deployed personnel and directed the agency's global espionage operations, relationships with foreign intelligence partners in the National Security Council mandated covert action operations. Mr. Kappas led in Washington and Libya the U.S. government operation that contributed to the Libyan government renunciation of their weapons and mass destruction program. Steve has immense experience in the field, including service as an operations officer in South Asian and Middle Eastern countries. As deputy chief of an overseas operational element focused on Iran, chief of station in a Middle Eastern country during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and was chief of station in a large central Eurasian country. Steve studied and used Farsi and Russian languages in the course of his assignments. His awards include the Presidential National Security Medal, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the CIA Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, two distinguished intelligence medals, three directors medals in the Donovan Award for Operational Excellence. Suffice to say we have here today two of the most distinguished national security and intelligence experts you could possibly want to weigh in on the subject at hand. That subject, of course, is the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham or Greater Syria. Nearly one year ago upstairs we brought together David, Steve, and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss the issue surrounding ISIS soon after the group rolled into Mosul, Iraq, surprising those who were not watching the years-long evolution of the former Iraqi affiliate of al-Qaeda in its subsequent transition into an independent entity called ISIS. In the short span of one year ISIS has become one of the most critical threats and challenges facing Iraq, the Middle East, and dozens of countries beyond including the United States. ISIS has attracted at least 22,000 fighters from more than 100 countries, so half the world have four fighters represented in Iraq and Syria at some point over the last four years. This represents a tremendous blowback potential against members of the coalition in other countries as well. Young men with battlefield experience, confidence, networks, and tremendous motivation could return home to their home countries and initiate attacks. For certain, their exploits on the battlefield transmitted in great detail by some of the 90,000 daily messages coming from ISIS have radicalized and inspired citizens of several countries to attack in defense of ISIS and to promote the group's agenda. We've seen this in Australia, the United States, Egypt, Canada, Tunisia, France, Belgium, Libya, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and many others. Before we look at the current and future potential challenges posed by ISIS and the conditions that brought us to where we are today, it is important to look back over the past year at some of the major events that have transpired since we met and since Mosul fell on June 10th, 2014. Some of those are notable. This is not an exhaustive list. But on June 29, 2014, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a new Islamic caliphate and declared himself as Caliph. Baghdadi invited Muslims around the world to journey to this new Islamic state. This declaration and call to service has been a tremendous stimulant and magnet for tens of thousands of people. In early August of last year, ISIS attacked members of Iraq's Yazidi minority, prompting President Obama to launch limited airstrikes against ISIS, while also dropping supplies to the Yazidis. Airstrikes increased in number in the days and weeks as they proceeded. On August 19 and again on September 2, ISIS executed American hostages, Jim Foley and Stephen Sotloff. British and Japanese hostages would subsequently be murdered by ISIS. On September 8, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouriel Maliki, was replaced by Haider al-Abadi, who joined us here a few weeks ago. In the face of tremendous pressure from both inside and outside of Iraq. Two days later, on September 10, President Obama announced the International Coalition to Combat ISIS. And on September 24, 2014, President Obama, speaking at the UN, spoke out against ISIS. ISIS supporters began appearing around the region at this time with groups in Egypt, Sinai, and in Libya declaring allegiance or acting on behalf of ISIS. In February 2015, ISIS released a video showing the burning to death of Jordanian F-16 pilot, Qasasbe, who was shot down during an operation over Syria. ISIS also executed Christians in Libya, destroyed the ancient Iraqi city of Nimrud, secured a pledge of allegiance from Boko Haram in Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the Bardo Museum attack in Tunisia, and a massive suicide bombing in Yemen. In May of this year, we saw a Delta Force operators, US Army Delta Force operators, penetrate Syria and kill a senior ISIS leader during a firefight. The next day, May 17, ISIS took Ramadi Iraq, and four days later, they take the ancient city and ruins of Palmyra, Syria. And on June 10, President Obama authorized the deployment of 450 additional advisors to Iraq. And last week, of course, we had the attacks in Tunisia in Kuwait. That's quite a toll for a year, and the impact goes well beyond the simple body count to include the political, economic, social, and diplomatic strains inflicted on millions of people. Now, as we look forward, there are many difficult decisions and considerations for a lot of parties to consider. For the next 45 minutes, I'll put a number of those issues before Steve and David, after which, you all have an opportunity to ask questions of your own. So with that, let me begin by asking both of you. Since we last met in July of 2014, what has surprised you most about how events have been folded in Iraq and Syria and with the broader anti-ISIS effort? David? Well, let me begin by looking back at what we said in July of last year. That was, I think both Steve and I had a pretty, we were seen then as an alarmist view, warning about the danger that was ahead. The two biggest surprises to me in the year since then have been the resilience, strange combination of resilience, brutality, and creativity, operational creativity of the Islamic State. They are agile, they concentrate force to achieve their objectives. They send, as in the capture of Ramadi, five to eight suicide bombs, one after the other, bang, bang, bang, and they terrify and intimidate their opponents. So they have been stronger, tougher, smarter than I would have thought. I had the hope a year ago that like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi's group, they would burn so hot that they would burn themselves out. That hasn't happened yet. The second surprise in this year, to be honest, is the lack of effectiveness and clarity of U.S. policy, U.S.-led policy in response. I wrote a column around June 11, noting that this week had two manifestos about this conflict. One was an ISIS video called A Year After the Conquest. I don't invite anybody to look at it online because it's so horrifying, but it shows with that sort of video style that their people have developed the overwhelming force and brutality of their conquest of Mosul, how they routed the Iraqi security forces from Mosul, the seeming jubilation of Sunnis in the city after their victory. And note the other manifesto of that week was the Obama administration announcing it would send an incremental, careful new force, 450 train and advise special operations forces to Al-Qaqadim in eastern Anbar province, who would generally, at least as far as we can tell, not get outside the wire of that base, who would not go with the Iraqi forces they were training in the battle. They're, so far as I can tell, still are not sufficient numbers of Sunni tribesmen who want to be trained by these U.S. training and advise forces that are in place now, as had been the case, I think, in an al-Assad air base further west. So, the ISIS assault is at hyperspeed for an insurgency. The U.S. response, I think, is at slow speed, as the president kind of rations each additional piece of his response. And if that formula continues without a change, I think a year from now, when we come back, we'll see an ISIS taking deeper roots in North Africa, spreading more deeply, still unchecked in Iraq, and Syria. So that's a pessimistic opening, but frankly, that's what I see in the past year. Thank you, David. Steven, I don't want to say that you agree with David by chance, but what else do you see beyond that? I would add, part of my thinking about it, Senator, is possibly more on disappointment than it does on surprise. Last year, about this time, we outlined clearly what, at least I did, what I thought was not just an aggressive, violent group, but also true forces of evil. There's no other way to describe people who are doing what they are doing to fellow citizens of the world, people of similar populations, both in Iraq and Syria. I think that I have probably been surprised that they have been able to fight as hard as they have fought and to recover as quickly as they have from some significant poundings by the United States from the air. Now, like most of you in this audience, I'm a student of history and we all know that nothing ends from the air alone, but it is still significant when that sort of ordnance lands on top of you and you recover. I think part of it is that we as the United States always underestimate the ability of groups like ISIS to sustain serious injuries and deaths and yet still press on, because the truth of the matter is the central command does not care about the deaths and the injuries to the people that work for them. They're only concerned about their small, what I call almost Bolshevik-like group of real, dedicated radicals and believers in the movement. So I was surprised at that, their ability to recover so quickly. I also am concerned that we aren't maintaining all the lessons that we have learned from our own 9-11 experience in terms of the interest and the willingness of these groups to press on against the United States in particular. When we don't take a firm stance, they fill every space of that that they possibly can as quickly as they can. When we're not prepared to lead in an aggressive fashion, I'm not talking about necessarily in a military fashion, but in an overall aggressive fashion, they will fill every second of that vacuum that they can find. And as a result, they therefore position themselves, particularly with Sunnis, who now, and their ability to move this propaganda is quite interesting, their ability to align us with Iran, even given what we've gone through since 1979 with Iran, is quite startling, and the number of people that actually believe it is even more startling. So the ability of the Middle East to build conspiracies and to spread them has worked to them and worked quicker than I would have thought of even in just one year. But I don't think their approach and their use of violence and their use of the evil forces that they do use has changed at all. And as a result, I find myself more worried this year than I was 12 months ago when we were here. Well, let's move on to the strategy. Do we have a strategy, David and Steve, in what is missing from that strategy? We have a declaratory strategy, and personally, I would say that elements of that strategy as declared are pretty much the right ones. The problem is that we have not found a way to implement the strategy. So let me unpack that a little bit. What President Obama did a year ago through the summer into September was to refuse pleas and treaties that the United States use its military power, use its air power in particular to take out the enemies of the Shiite-led government in Iraq, take out ISIS, until there were changes in that government. And it was a high-stakes effort by the President insisting that Nuri al-Maliki should leave and that a new Prime Minister, new member representative of his Dawa Party, should take office, as he did with Haider al-Abadi. So that part of U.S. policy, I thought was correct, was handled in a disciplined way. It was necessary to get Iran's acceptance of that change of Shiite leadership in Iraq. And again, I thought that that was done well. A second thing that was part of the strategy was to build an international coalition. And General John Allen went around the world. There were meetings. The coalition was assembled. And in terms of working with allies, it's hard for me to fault that in principle. That was the right thing to do. The list is a good list. When one member of that coalition, Jordan, was attacked in such a vicious way. The Jordanians responded strongly and seemed to have popular support. Another part of the strategy was to find a way to mobilize the elements in Iraq that would have to be part of evicting ISIS from Sunni areas, the Sunni tribes, the Sunni leadership, empowering them in this badly sectarian Iraq in a way that they would be effective implementers of the strategy when you would ask, what's the defeat mechanism? How do you defeat these people in Mosul and Anbar? The answer was, in part, the best Iraqi security forces but aided by the tribes who could immediately come in behind the clearing force. That still hasn't happened adequately. It's amazing to me when many months ago you had the Iraqi Defense Minister visiting Amman to talk about the plans, facilities for training Sunni tribal fighters in Jordan. You had camp set up. You had all the pieces of that assembled. And yet to this moment, so far as I know it, really still is in embryo. I'd say the same thing about the regional strategy. We nominally have a coalition that includes Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, go down the list. We have this implicit working understanding with Iran. And yet those elements, I don't think, have been mobilized to what exactly what our strategy is with Turkey. If anyone in this audience could please inform me, I would be very grateful. So, you know, I got close by saying the pieces of the strategy are there. The ability to implement it isn't, maybe in a few minutes I'd like to talk about the bureaucratic side of that, the lack of unity of command in this government to make that strategy happen. But I'll leave it there for now. Steve, can the tribal groups be brought to bear here? Is this once bitten, twice shy? Well, I think that historically the tribal groups have been bitten more than once, not just in the last 100 years. I think it becomes extremely difficult to mobilize the tribal groups if they do not sense from you a commitment that you're prepared to stay through the difficult periods of combat and open aggression and into the political transition so they can have some confidence that they will not lose when someone walks away. Those things they've earned through their own blood, their own treasure. As a result, I'm afraid that that becomes even a more difficult piece of work than it was when we first did it as a country, as a government, as a Department of Defense, as an agency through the surge earlier in the past decade. I would suggest that it will take someone with extraordinary persuasive skills and someone with extraordinary staying power to remain involved in both the movement of the Sunni tribes as well as the reintegration into the Iraqi government, because it is my understanding that the distrust between the Sunni tribes and the current Iraqi government is in some ways almost at its highest levels, even beyond some of the times that Dave and I are familiar with prior to 2010. I think they remain part of the solution, but distrust develops very quickly and takes a very long time to dispel. So as a result, I would advocate it as part of an overall strategy, but I would not have the same confidence that we had once before that would be as successful or as effective as it was as earlier. And plus, quite frankly, every time a Shia militia stands up and starts shooting ISIS, then they whisper that to the Sunni tribes. And the minute an effort happens. So as a result, it becomes a self-propagating propaganda machine in support of ISIS, regardless of what they may think about the methods of ISIS. So I'm afraid at this particular moment, I'm a little bit dismissive, but still believe it should be intertwined with the actual overall policy. Thank you. Before I get to the next question, let me recognize the ambassador from Iraq to the United States, Ambassador Faley. Thank you for joining us. Ambassador, can you tell us what is the policy? Is there a danger in focusing so much on Iraq and leaving so much in Syria untouched? And how do we deal with the Iraqi government? It's a complicated relationship, dealing with the Iraqi Security Forces. There's a lot of complications here. Let me take the second part of that first. Syria is such a complicated subject. I'd almost like to separate that and come back to it. Speaking about the slow progress in Iraq in many ways the lack of progress in this year and what to do about it, I tried to think about the fundamentals and to talk with people smarter than me about this issue. One of them is sitting in the audience, Ambassador Faley, Steve Hadley, Barhamsala, a number of other people out of government trying to think how could you take the elements of our strategy which seek to keep Iraq together in some way that seek to avoid this idea people have of the lines in the sand being just scattered to the winds and let's just plunge the whole region into uncertainty and chaos. How would you preserve Iraq but also speak to the Sunnis in a way that would give them more trust? They're the ones over time who are going to have to eradicate ISIS in their midst. What I came to was a version for 2015 of what Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton wrote in 2006 looking at essentially the same problem. The problem hasn't really changed from what they were writing back then, nine years ago. There's a bottom up or inside out part of this which is to find a way, find a formula for a genuinely federal decentralized, maybe confederal Iraq that keeps the borders of the country as a whole but lets the individual groups really have a kind of local autonomy. So Sunnis who are fighting to get ISIS out of Anbar have some confidence that when ISIS is out they won't be given instructions from Al-Amri or the Shia militias or anybody else that it will be their part of Iraq much as Kurds feel or Bill is their part of Iraq. So that's a part of that strategy. It's bottom up inside out and then there is an outside in part that involves the regional allies and for each of these conflicts Iraq, Syria, all the other ones, Libya. It is going to take a commitment by the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran. I mean somehow there's going to have to be a formula. We're going to have to live in a world where those powers can sit around a table and come up with agreements that they're prepared to back up. So I think those are the two elements of how you would make this work in Iraq. I think it's going to take discipline and time. It's probably the job of the next president of the United States but I think that's when it comes that's what it will look like. Any comments here Steve? I would only add that I become concerned over the last several years that we as a country have lost our ability to develop what I call a tapestry of policy a tapestry of strategy. In other words, for all of us who have had children and grandchildren you know the concept of small children soccer in which there's the ball and everyone goes to it. What I'm talking about is trying to weave together the programs because all these things are related so that you have a program in which you've connected the Syrian question with the Iraqi question with the Egyptian question with the Saudi question and then of course you talk to the Russians and Chinese and others and the Iranians are part of this in a way that allows the United States to view it as a tapestry and as for us I worry at times that we've lost our ability to do that or we're not interested I'm not sure what it is and I'm afraid too that if we don't do that actually it could contribute to Iraq losing its ability to be a unitary state. With all due respect to the good ambassador I'm concerned and I hope I'm wrong but I'm concerned that the trends are headed in the right direction of Iraq not being able to remain as a unitary state and I think that would be terrible I think that would be terrible for the citizens of Iraq as well as for the region as well as for the United States and so I just think that we have a role here to play and I know that we've been involved for over a decade in a lot of things but I don't remember who said it but someone said great powers aren't allowed to get tired I'm afraid this is one of those instances in which we have to look at our ability to weave this program, weave this tapestry in a way that helps others find their way to this too particularly our allies in the Middle East who are so hesitant to take this on for a whole variety of reasons. Steve a lot of people discuss the progress or lack of progress against ISIS and I think Americans tend to focus on the military centric side of this and there are of course many other elements the diplomatic, the economic, the political we've touched on some of those, the demographic in many discussions we have here at CSIS with Dr. Tony Cordesman and Dr. John Altman who discuss a lot of those elements and I hope they'll come up today but let's do talk specifically about the kinetic effort here against ISIS how are we doing on the battlefield do you believe in what needs to be brought to bear apart from all of those other elements to be successful in the battle I think that's a difficult one for me to answer because I'm not seeing the daily take from the battlefield but on the other hand I would offer that in many ways this is similar to the old discussions of insurgencies post-World War II insurgencies where if the larger power is not clearly winning then they're actually losing so I think in this case even though we have the ability to bring to bear significant power there are some things that aren't on the ground at the moment which I think when you talk to those who are most experienced and those who are currently involved are quite significant for example the absence of forward air controllers reduces the capability, significance and efficiency of your airstrikes the lack of a logistics capability on the ground in Iraq is essential because the Iraqis in many cases there are some fine fighters but they do not have the logistics skills in the United States therefore they find themselves in isolated situations too quickly and too often and when you cannot reinforce if you think getting shot at takes the heart out of a soldier try putting letting them also realize that they're completely alone with no chance of reinforcement for ammo people or anything else that really takes the heart out of the fighters let alone if their officers then disappear as a result there are some fundamentals to military conflict which you cannot necessarily carry out from afar or from the sky many of these people in the room I know you've read the studies of World War II and realize that Germany was not finished even though the fire bombings were as significant as they'd ever been in history we're not in any part of the Vietnam War I mean significant in their impact but people who are determined to survive will survive as a result and I'm not an advocate of simply cutting loose military forces in all of its impact and all of its force I have had children in the military but my point is there are some almost like laws of physics that play here that if you can't get closer to the target they're going to be able to withstand your attack I refer people to these who would hunker down on the islands of the Pacific and undergo 20-30 days of extraordinary bombardment and still be there when the Marines show up there are things like that that can't be denied in terms of military combat now war as we all know is a political action but we may have to address that more honestly as a people and I'm afraid that the only person that can actually address that when it becomes necessary is the President of the United States not a secretary not a senior policy person not necessary or if the decision is made we have to be more effective in our military work I'm afraid the President has to take that one on David, a year from now do you expect to see large deployments of U.S. forces in Iraq in potentially Syria? No, I don't I don't think as long as Barack Obama's President will see large military deployments it's possible that we could see the additional steps that Steve has urged I agree are would be would be valuable allowing our advisors to go forward with the Iraqi forces they're advising whether they're Sunni tribal fighters, Iraqi security forces and bolster them in combat lays targets for more effective close-in air support I can see those things happening I think we have to be honest looking at this we have a President but we also have a country that in many ways is allergic to Iraq we live through such a painful period after the 2003 invasion I think it's widely shared whatever Jeb Bush may say when he's asked about it it's widely shared view that it was a mistake to have done that and beyond the mistake of invasion there were so many mistakes that was carried out during the period of occupation so the American people not unreasonably are very reluctant to get into the kind of large-scale involvement that you're asking about and the President more than most Americans and I think that reluctance just comes through in every moment of policy and it then translates into the military the military says we don't have a strategy all in for victory I don't want to send my guys back home in wooden boxes military is like decisive wars with popular support where they can they have a conclusive ending we don't live in a period in which that's possible and I do worry sometimes that the military is seeking something that isn't possible let me say one more thing it concerns me especially in this period where the President is I called him allergic to Iraq that maybe overstates it but certainly is reluctant here but has made a commitment in his words to degrade and ultimately destroy this adversary what he needs above all more than anything else more than any particular decision to send advisors forward or lays this he needs some one person who will take responsibility for this campaign and every day every morning when he asks the question how are we doing in our battle against ISIS we'll say Mr. President in the last 24 hours we had this and this and this here are my biggest problems ask you to focus on today John Allen thought he had been given that job when he was made special representative for the President to build the coalition to fight ISIS that job despite strenuous arguments to Obama was not put at the White House as many people thought it should be but was put at the State Department and from that moment that was what roughly September, October of last year you've had a series of interagency confusions, false starts where you have the sent com commander Lloyd Austin asking the President Mr. President am I running this war and the answer is yes you are but then you have a former four star general who has been given the job by the President of running the coalition and the strategy and so it's not surprising that you just with these competing authorities have a kind of policy confusion that hurts our effort I think confuses our allies so if there's one thing in this next year you ask where will we be in a year I think the President is not going to put tens of thousands of US troops in he doesn't have to if he'll put one person in as a decisive commander of this effort the military pieces the strategic pieces the diplomatic and political pieces and so I think that is doable even for this administration please Steve I'm a great believer in ambassadors I've had the opportunity in my career to work with some people that I think are some brilliant ambassadors the great Tom Pickering Frank Wissner, Ryan Crocker Ann Patterson others who are designated by law and by the President's by their confirmation and by the President's direction to be the President's representative in these particular countries when they have worked effectively with military presence in those countries Ryan Crocker, David Petraeus is one example that is an extraordinarily effective team for the United States of America that answers directly to the President of the United States so we have once again all the tools in place to do the things we need to do and have used them before effectively I'm always amazed and somewhat surprised at our our ability to create new things that don't work as well as the things we just left behind so as a result I think if we return to that so the ambassador that says he or she is the President's representative and the President of the United States can speak to them directly and say what is going on, what do you recommend it focuses that energy, it focuses that ability it also makes it easier for the President to actually have responsiveness in a way that he's not getting because the agencies are agencies, departments are departments they will compete over who has what access to whom and it does not work at the moment as effectively as it can with some of the past the names John Negroponte others, some of you may know of men and women who are extraordinary representatives of U.S. interests, U.S. strategy and U.S. policy and they can effectively manage the tools on the ground no one can manage the tools in the United States, I understand that I'm talking about on the Ford end of all this so that the President has the ability to know as best as possible what's happening and therefore make decisions that are in the best interest of the United States people that's what I worry about in terms of our unwillingness to look at those things in a way that's quite open and quite honest. Thank you. David you're one of our nation's leading journalists you're involved in social media you see how robust that field is you understand messaging how can we counter 90,000 messages a day that are disseminated by supporters that stimulate and invigorate this worldwide movement? Part of the puzzle in your question is the word we have how is this counter messaging going to be organized to what extent is it going to be an effort of the U.S. government and other governments to what extent is it spontaneous, does it represent the youth of the region my friends from the Arab world keep insisting to me that is powerful and intimidating as I ask messaging is what's still dominant on social media in Arabic is what I'd call the freedom spirit the Taherir Square statement I'm a citizen, I'm not going to be pushed around I can communicate I have my device, I'm connected I'm not going to take it anymore I won't take it from Ramallah I won't take it from the authoritarian leader I'm going to live in my own world and somehow that message that spirit of connectedness I think of free citizens which is still there we get too depressed about the Arab winter sometimes it's still there as near as I can tell somehow that has to become more of the dominant narrative it probably needs help from governments but I worry in the post Snowden age about swallowing the poison pill I worry about steps that seem sensible in terms of messaging that end up limiting the message or undercutting it so I think this is an area where it's crucial to get it right but the one thing I think the US has learned is the United States is not a credible messenger in telling young Muslims what Islam is how they should live the right enemies and allies are that has to come from the region and it has to be mobilized quickly there are lots of smart people I know who could help do this tomorrow but the pathway for them to do it that doesn't end up as I say undercutting their efforts in the future is very complicated Judge Webster and I had lunch a few weeks ago and we discussed the video showing the burning of the Jordanian pilot and how something like that could resonate with people around the world and the discussion we had focused on the fact that it resonates with so many of these young men who are marginalized in every way socially, politically, economically and who see an opportunity for mobilization a sense of purpose, a mission awful and unbelievable for all of us a meeting out of justice someone who flew an airplane bomb civilians in their mind and then pays for his deeds in the same way they did and that kind of messaging is very difficult to defeat and I agree with you young men especially those under 40 there is no mainstream message for them to latch onto they've already rejected that they've already been pushed to the margins that actually can reach a lot of them that small number a broader audience perhaps but I'm afraid that when a video comes out like that and it's accepted by so many people we're in tremendous trouble here Steve I want to take advantage of your background in intelligence here which is impressive to say the least and you've touched on a few of these things before but can you talk about some of the intelligence challenges here before you answer I'll say there's still a lot of troops on the ground and I'm not suggesting that we do this again but when you have 100,000 troops on the ground you have a huge station active in a place like Baghdad and other places you have a lot of people forward a lot of intelligence personnel a lot of opportunities to network with people on the ground citizens of a country like Iraq to develop the kind of sense and situational awareness that can enable your operations what are the intelligence challenges on the ground and also given an adversary like ISIS let's divide it into three pieces if you will for collection the two pieces both technical and human and then in this type of environment intelligence also plays what I call as a state craft role which is an influence role which is supportive of U.S. policy with groups and others who they are in contact with many cases for liaison services think about it for a second in those three categories if we're looking at the Iraq Syria theater they're different too in Iraq there are still a significant number of what I call forward platforms from which you can launch it makes common sense of course that the closer you can get to the target the easier it is to recruit to actually collect intelligence in Iraq there are still significant possibilities from which they can launch and there is it's my understanding some solid collection it's never good enough and then it's solid now remember now and I do this for my soapbox in the intelligence business there are secrets and then there are also mysteries my example of that is always remember the young fruit vendor who set himself on fire in Tunisia that started in many ways much of this there's no one on the planet there's probably no one in the universe except God who knew what was going on that Tunisian's head when he decided to set himself on fire so there are mysteries that are taking place there in terms of what ISIS is deciding to do their ability to also close their ranks once again I use my example of the Bolsheviks what's only known by two or three or four people and also don't forget that espionage is still in all countries punishable by many cases imprisonment but by ISIS it's punishable by horrific deaths so when you're asking people to do things that put their lives and their families live in immediate jeopardy understand it's not that easy to step right up and just say whatever you want United States I'm happy to help so always keep that in mind when you're thinking about intelligence collection now Syria becomes even more difficult challenge remember Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez al-Assad actually constructed what some could call a Stalin-like state in terms of its security services and their ability to control and suppress the people very skilled, very effective very dangerous this is also a country that has decided that it's okay to drop barrel bombs on their own people so as a result you already highlight the difficulties to collection problem the collection problem is also compounded because moving forward in Syria you have to spend just as much time trying to stay alive as you do having to try to figure out how to collect things so as a result I would identify at the moment the Syrian challenge is probably greater than the Iraqi challenge because we still have long-standing relationships in Iraq that are quite productive at the moment once again with deference to the ambassador the relationships at time are not as easy or as efficient as they were as recently as 4, 5, 6, 7 years ago so that makes it difficult too and so there has to be a reliance on partners I would like to compliment the Jordanians the Jordanians have once again stepped up and put their people in harm's way and indeed are on the ground and elsewhere to assist both publicly and clandestinely some of the other services are doing the best they can but in some cases the best they can is really not very good or certainly not good enough so as a result now I'm certainly not looking for the United States to lead everything all I'm talking about in this arena that you've asked about the United States has the ability to lead and to guide in a way that could be effective and so as a result those relationships with foreign countries become very important in trying to persuade them to convince them this work with us is effective for them too now I would like to make in reference to the messaging piece the advent of social media the ability to put stories out quickly the abilities to spread fabrications is greater than it has ever been so as a result the work of intelligence officers I think is becoming increasingly difficult because the one question we all have always asked ourselves is has what I've just received or just heard, is it true because I have a sense now that Mr. Lennon's famous sentence which was if you say a lie often enough it becomes the truth is actually becoming more and more prevalent in the Middle East as well and God knows the Middle East has created some conspiracies in the last five or six hundred years but the point is it's not just a matter of collecting the information and saying that this man said this because he was there it's also a matter of before it goes to the president saying is this actually true did this happen there used to be something we used to call it Afghan math John McGaffer remember this we just attacked the Soviets and we killed 400 people how many people did you kill okay it was about 200 how many people was it well maybe it was about four guys in a jeep my point to that is that in the current environment these things become important because what you don't want to have is a president making bad judgments or bad information and also becoming so anxious to deliver the information that you've not done what you need to do I call it the ruthless application of your methodologies and asking the question is it true so the challenges are significant on the Iraqi side I think there's more opportunity for success on the Syrian side it becomes much more difficult and it will rely I think a great deal on a very clear and efficient assistance from some of our close friends in the Middle East who have some significant capabilities of their own David we've been focusing on ISIS we've been focusing on the relationship of Iraq we've touched on Syria and the intelligence side there's a big actor we haven't gone into in great detail yet and of course that is Iran with regard to ISIS and what's going on in Iraq and in Syria they cannot be divorced certainly from the perspective of the Iranians is Iran playing offense or defense here with what they're doing are they more afraid of ISIS coming in and creating a state inside of Iraq or are they trying to take advantage of this or both well I think they're being opportunistic as always so sometimes that is offense sometimes it's defense sometimes most of the time it's a combination I just should note before focusing on Iran something we haven't talked about but is important when you think going forward although the US has not been successful overall has had great success in working with its friends in Kurdistan the Kurdish platform for military and other operations is powerful I traveled in Kurdistan from Erbil all the way to the west and then down into Nineveh province outside of Kurdistan with the Peshmerga a few months ago and now the Peshmerga working quietly with elements of US and coalition power have pushed ISIS back in Kirkuk they've held their own there's a sort of continuing battle between forces in Kirkuk and the main ISIS camp I think it's called the Khawija to the southwest but that's a success and it'd be a mistake not to note it in this discussion and not to think how do you build on it the question has been should you send weapons directly to them that really is an issue for Ambassador Filey's government can they get weapons to the Kurds quickly enough that that option isn't discussed anymore the Iranians when you think about how the Kurdish forces were rocked in Erbil in August, September how their lines really cracked how dangerous it was Erbil itself was threatened and who was the first in first in was Qasem Soleimani and the Kurds force supplying ammunition supplying I'm told individual people to help bolster the lines to work with the Peshmerga to get people in to get their command stronger Erbil was saved, the US came in after and our help was also crucial but the Iranians have a wealth of experience contacts, they've been working as often the same case officers have been working the same network of sources and assets for 20 years or more they know this terrain they know the Shia landscape obviously they know Kurdistan with meticulous detail they have very good contacts in the Sunni world so we're fighting an adversary that made a vow after the Iraq-Iran war never again will we allow Iraq to threaten our fundamental security and they do everything they can to prevent it. One more comment about Iran as I've watched the Iranians and their proxies the Shia militias I've seen that they have an ability to start fights but not to finish them in part because the areas they're fighting are typically Sunni areas where they're not sufficiently welcome so in Tikrit the Shia militias moved on to Tikrit and then got stalled and US air power came in and finished that fight and Tikrit still from what I know is largely unpopulated it's been impossible really to move enough people back in to get the clear get the hold and build part going. You could argue the same in Anbar province that Iran's strategy whatever it is Iran shares in the terrible setbacks in the loss of Anbar province so how US and coalition operations with Iran will be shaped in the period after a nuclear deal is reached assuming that in the next couple weeks by July 9 that can be done I think is one of the real challenges for US and Iranian officials. Is it going to be possible to have some more effective alliance that draws in Sunni countries because Saudi Arabia is going to have to be comfortable with that is that going to be possible after the deal? I don't know but I'm sure going to be trying to find out I've been a long believer and David knows this in engagement with Iran I think it's essential that I don't think we can go through life and not have engagement with a country like Iran and so as a result I'm hopeful that there's some agreement to be worked out but whatever happens what I don't want to see is a disconnection to get in a way. I also am aware of Mr. Trilshaw's comments about dealing with the devil. I get that but I would like to offer a sharp criticism of Qasim Sulaimani Qasim Sulaimani is a killer of Americans he is responsible for the death of Americans and he's still planning to kill Americans so I don't want anyone to leave the room here thinking that Qasim Sulaimani is the somehow the Robin Hood of the Shia population or he's the New Jengas Khan of the Middle East Qasim Sulaimani is a man who's opposed the United States, everything we believe in, everything we do, everything we try to do so I would just ask you to keep in mind and keep separate the differences between strategic engagement with Iran which is important to U.S. security and also somehow highlighting what some people are suggesting as the most wonderful, significant, smart as powerful and contributing member of the Middle East. I would offer to you it's not true. Thank you for my soapbox man. Absolutely. So the enemy of our enemy is only a temporary partner. That's what Mr. Churchill would say and I'm sticking with him on this. Okay, Steve you've had to deal with a lot of pretty unsavory regimes in the past in order to further national security goals. Two years ago we wanted to get rid of Assad but I think we've had a hands-off policy in order to not one, not bring about a new Libya or even a Somalia as far as chaos. And number two I think because as we associate a nuke deal with Iran we want to keep that issue comfortable for the Iranians and not pull another leg from out underneath the stool that they're sitting on. How do we deal with Assad now? Well that's an extraordinarily difficult question as you know. I mean I will now sound like what I am a former CIA officer. CIA officers generally it's my experience believe in engagement with people. Part of it because we learned early on that if you are not engaged physically, if you're not engaged eye to eye in some case you have little to no chance of influencing their behavior. I would use you were kind enough to refer to the Libyan experience. I would use as an example once you get engaged with people who are as you've described them unsavory or unpleasant if you hope to influence them and change them you have to stay engaged. Now in many cases that's the reason why intelligence organizations are built to do that sort of thing. I do not know if there is engagement with the Syrians. I would hope then some form or another there is some discussion being taken place to show Bashar al-Assad that he has only two choices to figure out an exit role of some kind or to die in Syria. Maybe like Mr. Qaddafi that has been his plan all along. I don't know but he doesn't strike me as the same type of person. I would think that we have to use whatever tools are available to try and engage Syria and David has a very deep understanding of Syria but to engage them in a fashion that tries to prevent this from creating an even greater opening an even greater vacuum if Bashar al-Assad has exploded, died, killed destroyed inside Damascus because my concern is that without some sort of assistance in shaping that future there's nothing that can help you predict what group what other sort of organization might take over inside Syria and it could be far more radical than what we're currently dealing with. I think it is so uncertain at the moment that there must be something we should think about doing to try and shape the future, shape the exit regardless of who we have to do it with. Now I would admit to you and I'm not, I know some people are quite capable of this but it takes a certain sort of person to hang in on this because it is really unpleasant work because you will be face to face with in many cases people that you would hope you would never meet. What the point is if you don't engage it then you have absolutely no chance whatsoever of actually shaping because people will then formulate their thinking based on what they think you are thinking or what they think you are saying and they will be getting through second and third in some case fourth parties who are trying to interpret what's going inside the United States. It's a very difficult task but I think it's very important. David, dealing with our adversaries our enemies is of course very difficult and complicated but also dealing with our friends. Let's think about Turkey, a NATO ally sharing a huge border with Syria. This has been a very difficult relationship over the past four or five years. I've done field work on the border with Syria. I've interviewed militants from ISIS in the Nusrah Front. There is clear evidence of these groups operating from the Turkish side of the border here. How do we deal with Turkey a nation that has very different strategic goals than we do when it comes to this region? Well that's been a puzzle that the administration hasn't been able to solve. We've had the confusion of the Turkish parliamentary elections. It's still not clear how President Erdogan wants to play that in terms of whether the AK party will try to govern alone and then call elections again soon or we'll seek a coalition partner at least it wasn't clear as of last night but that makes this confusing. You could argue that the Turks are now living with their own inability to make good policy decisions in that one of their nightmares is happening. The PYD Syrian Kurdish Militia supported by Kurdish forces from both Turkey and Iraq is sweeping across northeastern Syria in one of the most effective campaigns in this war and when I talk to people they say to me Peshmerga are good fighters in Iraq the PYD are really good fighters. These are tough tough fighters. Nobody likes to say so but they're trained by the PKK which is a mortal has been a mortal enemy of the Turkish government is considered by the Turks as a terrorist group so from Turkey's standpoint you have this band south of their border increasingly controlled by a group that is trained and to some extent run by people they regard as fundamentally dangerous so Turkey has some choices to make. Arguably that's a good thing because they'll have to make choices with us about their security and ours. I guess I'd come back to the basic puzzle here with Syria which is getting buy-in from all of the key players Russia whose interests are directly threatened by collapse of the Assad regime Turkey which has got a ragged unstable border and newly emboldened Kurdish militias and Saudi Arabia which thought that it wanted to overthrow Bashar no matter what but is beginning to wonder the UAE has already defected from that get rid of Bashar this evening line and now with Jordan says hold on at some point these various powers need to work together to identify the elements of a new government that would include people from the army people like Farooq Shahra who are acceptable figures of the old regime people who are members of the opposition who were willing to sit down as part of a new government transition. Alawite clan leaders who have power in the mountains in the northwest in Latakia not part of the Assad clan somehow that has to be done and it's going to happen it's just a question of whether people come to their senses or another hundred thousand die before it happens but with each of these things you know how it's going to turn out you just don't know when people will get the political clarity and leadership to make it happen and again that's what I'd hope to get more of from Washington. Finish up with a final question on foreign fighters I think it's clear that a lot of young men and some young women from around the world are going to the caliphate declared by ISIS to defend it to build it to run it to govern it they see this as a state they want to not only fight but they want to clothe people they want to provide food work in the Sharia courts be parts of the infrastructure there's lots of state building in their minds and they want to stay there and they see this as a place to live out their lives there's no doubt about it among those 20,000 plus foreign fighters some will return and they will be incredibly skilled and motivated what's more of a threat in your mind Steve and David the returning fighters are those that are inspired by what those fighters are doing on the ground and getting back to your point upstairs earlier what are some of the challenges and what are some of the values it's a good question my force I think you have to work it from the objective backwards if there are young men who are in the United States for example who are inspired today to carry out a terrorist attack that's the equivalent of what took place on the beach in Tunisia just recently then obviously that's more dangerous however there's nothing quite as dangerous as a seasoned combat veteran who has returned to his home with the war so as a result I think there's a new thing that has to be take place here a new evolution of counter-terrorism work that focuses on this in a way that we haven't had to before I mean the numbers of foreign fighters are unbelievable I remember in the days of the early part of the Iraq war before the United States left we would talk about foreign fighters on a daily basis but the numbers were only a tenth of what we're talking about now and as a result it focuses the business of the services in a way that at this moment they are strapped because of the resources necessary to focus on this so it brings up the other question I offer this as a question I don't have the answer I only have experience some good some bad which is let us say that if the number 20,000 foreign fighters is correct and 10,000 of them survive the war and make their way back home then we find them what do we do to find them Francis began to change their own legislation to allow themselves the ability to use modern communications in a way they've never done it before do we go back and revisit the question of privacy do we go back and revisit the question of how do we stop people who are trying to kill us your neighbors your friends your brothers or sisters or children I don't know they answer that question it has evolved I think quite brilliantly and I hope David agrees with me which is the connection between security and law enforcement services to make sure information moves quickly and effectively to try and head off terrorism attacks I'll take one last minute and say I think our government and many of the other governments have become quite skilled at finding and stopping real life terrorists on the move to the target our inability to stop the recruitment of people to fill the next wave and of course you know my theory John Mike I think one of the greatest counter-terrorism tools we have which we don't use effectively enough is jobs jobs jobs here and all these places overseas as a result that's the piece that second tier of support that worries me as much as stopping the terrorists who said I'm on the move I'm going I'm going to do X objective here we go final comment David just briefly to try to sum up as we think about this year since the surprise overrunning of Mosul as the director of national intelligence Clapper said our underestimation of ISIS's capabilities and will a year later essentially we did the same thing we underestimated their ability with a relatively small force to roll through Ramadi and the government forces picked up and left so I have concluded from this that we just don't know enough about this adversary there are a lot of problems we've talked about in terms of the US and coalition strategy but at the top of the list with all deference to Steve who understands this in a way that an outsider can't my sense is we just don't have good enough intelligence surely a part of that is that people have gone to school on our communications collection capabilities and are smarter and US technology companies are making it easier for them and adding new layers of encryption every other week so somehow that intelligence gaps can have to be made up in Iraq something that the US did enormous effect and power was the cycle of night raids where in the middle of the night in some place we'd identified people would arrive they would be firefights maybe they'd capture people if they could but basically they were collecting intelligence which would drive the next night's raids and the next night's and the next night's and then it just becomes you gather momentum because each raid feeds the information that you don't have it's said that the Abu Sayyaf raid the only thing of that kind that we've seen from our special operations forces in Syria to capture turn out the wife of the chief financial officer of ISIS was effective in terms of providing lots of leads but I don't see this problem being managed I include the foreign fighter part and the internal fight part without better intelligence and I honestly don't see how you get that unless you've had an increased operations tempo like what we've seen in other conflicts thank you both for those great comments we'll open it up now please identify yourself and I'm John McGatvin CSIS advisor I'd like to raise what I call the conflict between the issue of the state and the amoeba and we've been having a lot of discussions almost exclusively except for Steve towards the end on the state problem how much kinetic force is appropriate to use against the state and what are the resources will they still have money to operate as a state all those again that's a legitimate discussion that's pretty much the way the discussion in Washington is focused what I wonder if we're paying enough attention to is the amoeba part of that and by that I mean the ever increasing seems to me attacks abroad that Tom iterated at the beginning from Australia to Oklahoma and right now for all the pain they cause people it's not it doesn't move the geopolitical needle at all but is there a possibility do you think that as whatever progress we make against the state that the examples of the amoeba spreading out into wherever there isn't a state that doesn't have borders will that someday get to be the point where it does become the big problem for us you've got Yemen and you've got Libya and beyond well I would offer there already is a big problem for us there's a couple realities here one is that states like to think about the other world as the states part because they have some sense of what to do without a work with it this is not a sales pitch but I'll make it anyway there's a wonderful group of people at the agency called CIA called the PITF the political instability task force they've been in business for a number of years they're currently doing some brilliant work on just this question which is discussing the idea of how the United States must now begin to look not just at state adversaries but also these non-state adversaries who are developing significant influence in places that we didn't anticipate seeing them before obviously ISIS and the Caliphate is one of those areas there's some other places in which you have Boko Haram which is now influential player which is not a state actor and there's the extensions of ISIS in other places that also play to this it's relatively new thinking if you will certainly it's a post 9-11 type of thing but it's very real there's interest in it there's good very very professional analytical work being done on it it's a little bit of a difficult collection challenge in that well who are these people let's just collect what do we have and of course you've got to now figure out how to make it up so it actually people in the policies to have from say this is real they can see how in Afghanistan al-Qaeda had influence but beyond that did they have influence in Pakistan they had enough influence to hide not an influence to change the government well that's not the case now so my only answer to you is you're correct there's work being done but it's not a routine part of government's considerations quite yet but I think the pace is picking up where they'll be forced to consider it yes Ambassador Faley good morning gentlemen when you see the coalition forces and the old daily talk this is another do you feel there is a sense of urgency aligned between the countries of the region and United States or do you still think that intellectually people may get it but practically the steps are not still there thank you I would say Mr. Ambassador that the sense of urgency surely is greater today than it was last Thursday because of these attacks on three continents a picture of a threat that's metastasizing a threat that has to be addressed in Iraq and Syria so this coalition is going to have to go into a different year in terms of its activities and it's been interesting that Prime Minister Abadi went to the G7 meeting has been trying to be a better response among other coalition members but somehow that's got to move into something more aggressive these last few weeks are demonstrating that this threat is metastasizing the only answer is for the individual security services where they exist Libya is a nightmare because it's fallen apart as a country who do you work with the elements that the coalition will work with in all these countries need to ask for help and then do the fighting it's not going to be possible for America, America, France and Britain, America, France, Britain, Australia are not going to solve the problem they're going to help I think that's a very important question Mr. Ambassador because I think that everyone has accepted intellectually but in many ways the pieces that the coalition can really manage properly is the non-military pieces now everyone who's been in harm's way is to be complimented and encouraged but what I'm talking about is the coalition allies that are in the region are the ones best positioned to try and discuss in Arabic the political, economic, ideological and the demographic changes that need to take place as well as dare I call it a Middle Eastern type of Marshall plan where the resources come to bear so that when the fighting stops you can begin in a way that's more effective but it's not taking place at the moment so as a result I'm afraid that you're correct that intellectually they're there but the part that is the more practical emotional piece hasn't yet caught up Josh, third row in the middle please I'm Colonel Issa Morogi, United States Army I'm a medical officer and I served in Iraq I was a command surgeon for the Office of Security Cooperation your comments are really very refreshing what's missing from this discussion is the power of Mosul, city of Mosul Iraqi Christian originally what's missing is the power of religion you know we saw if you look history the Sinusi movement in Libya in the 18th century the Wahhabi movement and the Mahdi movement so this element of radical Islamic state is not a recent issue what's disheartening for me is United States doctrine to respond to non-state element such as radically motivated groups like ISIS is nonexistent we don't have population based outreach to disarm this agenda and I wanted to see what your comments are you touched bases on some of the political issues some of the economic development we have not seen that developing it's very frustrating for people like us to see this ideology is permeating and we don't have an answer to that and I wanted to see two distinguished gentlemen what they thought about that well I'm happy to start I think you're absolutely right I think somehow at the United States remember now everyone this is citizen capis talking here at the US government level we've now become embarrassed to talk about religion even our own and so as a result we had this tendency to draw back from these questions in which people who whether I believe that ISIS in some cases they're fighting well but for a horrible cause but we still have this unwillingness to discuss with them or to assist in the discussion of the fact that what they're doing is not actually in line with their own religious beliefs and further to more importantly to encourage those people who can say that with clarity, with credibility both in Saudi Arabia as the custodian the two holiest places as well as Al-Azor in Egypt those places to encourage them to have those discussions to say we need to cast doubt in the minds of these people who are doing this we should do a heck of a good job of casting doubt in our own minds why can't we organize ourselves in a way that we can discuss this in a fashion that is so appropriate I mean history is century after century after century of these discussions and yet somehow now in 2015 we're too embarrassed to discuss it or we don't want to insult someone or we don't want to have someone misunderstand I don't understand that myself but I think you're right on the mark these are men who are fighting at the moment who have woven their religion for better or worse into every element of their day not just when they go to mass on Sundays so as a result if we're serious about looking at that we have to try and see what they're thinking how they're visualizing their day and their goals not simply focusing the way we hear on our sectarian approach to this I think you're on to something that's big and I think that it's extraordinarily difficult for the United States government to do the lady in the front please hello I'm Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman I'm the Kurdistan regional government representative to the United States one thing that's been missing from the discussion except I have to admit I arrived a little late so I apologize if you touched on this at the beginning what I haven't heard is any discussion of the humanitarian crisis 3 million Iraqis are displaced millions of Syrians are displaced in Kurdistan region alone we're looking after 1.8 million Syrians and fellow Iraqis their education is going to pot their health is healthcare is almost nonexistent we in Kurdistan and other places in Iraq are very concerned about security even in the camps we don't want these camps to become places where new radicals can be formed so this is another crisis that we're brewing if you like for the future and I'd like to hear this touched on as well thank you thank you for bringing it up there's no doubt about it the millions of refugees and internally we've been to those camps on our field visits half of Iraq serious population is displaced Turkey's hosting 1.8 million refugees at a cost of $6 billion to the country it is a true humanitarian disaster hundreds of thousands murdered and killed otherwise it is tremendous lack of education income distribution housing incredible set of issues that are structural and important to the counter-terrorism side as well any comments David or Steve I just would say that with this as other aspects of this nightmarish problem the US needs to lead its partners in the region and internationally in stepping up the effort so it's closer to the level of the problem I mean we have declaratory policies about humanitarian issues but there's no follow through people make pledges that they never deliver I've looked at camps in Kurdistan I remember just seeing the sea of tents last year in northern Jordan where the Syrians have come I've seen the camps in Turkey and you know if you want to really think about it the nightmare think about all those young men in those camps very little eat very little jobs money but radical preachers people talking to them about settling scores and it's a formula for not just another four or eight years but a generation of nightmarish problems we saw what happened when the Palestinians were dispersed and went into camps and had radicals banging them every day about the struggle and I think it's already I fear it's already too late to have caught that in the de-radicalization phase so you're now going to have to think about harder edge CT measures but surely getting those getting people back into Syria you know the development is urgent in Syria I think for the humanitarian reason you've got to get people back to their homes and to reasonable wise so that kids can go to school again that's right we're many many years away from that all the way in the back in the blue shirt thank you Marcus Lee with the Government Accountability Office for the US military training and advising mission what would success look like for both the Iraqi security forces the Kurdish, Peshmerga, the tribal forces training what would you say the milestones or metrics to show success and then a separate smaller question what are your thoughts on the reports that some Iraqi citizens believe that the US itself is funding and supporting ISIS to attack against Iraqis for the counter messaging part of that thank you the benchmarks are always difficult first of all I compliment Secretary Carter recently for talking about the fact of the shortage of Iraqi recruits for the training practice I think you have to have a series of benchmarks some of them will sound terribly bureaucratic but they're actually true, numbers of recruits the quality of the training how many of you actually trained successfully but the ultimate test the metric is their success on the battlefield for which they are launched but they can't do that alone and this is when you're training them from the ground up they then have to have the sort of support that the United States can provide which is command and control support because whether we like it or not we still remain the best on the planet at that sort of thing and as a result you have to have those measuring sticks I think the other important part here is I'm not suggesting anyone isn't being honest about this I'm just suggesting it's important to be terribly honest about it so you don't try to end up with a well no it's really going well and so it's so great and then six months later you find out we're really going well doesn't really mean what you thought it meant when you heard the first time so as a result training and assist is very hard there's some other gentlemen in this audience who are very aware of this too it's very difficult there are cultural differences there are training differences there are things that we assume here in the United States in terms of training military there are just not assumed in other parts of the planet as a result it requires a certain type of trainer there are regulations that many who knows many in this room may not enjoy it requires linguistic skills and also supports that are very, very important but it also training and assist effectively requires the people who are the trainers to stay with it stay with it and stay with it and not be just disappearing and going home say okay you know how to shoot your rifle see you later that simply doesn't work and that's part of what makes it so difficult for the United States conspiracy theories in the past that the US helped form al-Qaeda and supported it now we have a question along the same lines with regard to ISIS and opinions from Iraqi citizens the problem with the theory that we helped form al-Qaeda is that it has elements of truth so it's a little tough to rebut that one it is amazing to me that in the face of evidence of American inability to achieve results through a projection of our power that people continue to believe that we are all powerful so you know if the Americans couldn't get the electricity going in Iraq I must have had a plan not to get the electricity going in Iraq because I mean they're the Americans of course they could do it and that has been extended to ISIS and I think how the heck these teenagers 23 year olds running rampant across our country and our army runs away and they capture American tanks how could they do that and so the answer is well it must be an American plot because Americans wouldn't let that happen they'd be crazy to let that happen so you could argue this is our last remaining element of genuine national power is that the way in which the world thinks that we could accomplish anything we've given a decade more than a decade of evidence that it ain't so but people don't still seem to think it so maybe that's the way to use that you convinced me in the green shirt please thank you very much I'm going to go back to the Al-Mayyadid network based in Beirut, Lebanon following what Mr. Ignatius was saying but in a different way there is a perception and reality in the region about the seriousness of US and the coalition to fight Daesh forget the conspiracy issue is it really priority for the United States to fight Daesh as the primary danger the serious danger the priority or let's say the potential influence of Iran as a regional power in the context of what's going on in the region there's two camps the Sunni camp and the Shia camp are fighting that's the perception to a certain degree there is some signs of is the United States capable of advancing, fighting Daesh, ISIS or Al-Qaeda who has been forgotten in Yemen now over Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar others who they have their priority to settle in the region against Iran or removing Assad regime who is driving the policy now I'll take a first quick shot it's a great question and it goes to the heart of the US problem we're trying to mobilize Sunni allies to fight ISIS Daesh who are more motivated to fight Iran and Shia power and that is the basic problem of our strategy I talked earlier about some ideas I have about how you deal with that and how you provide the core not here that this is not a top priority for a weary United States and it also isn't a top priority for our Sunni allies Ron Marks Thank you guys, this is a wonderful session David you wrote an interesting article recently on Homeland Security and some of the challenges over there given what's happened in the last few days in terms of the attacks over seas we have the wherewithal and the understanding at this point about what kind of recruitment is going on in the US from ISIS and what kind of actions might be taken here I'm very uncomfortable I don't want to be alarmist when I've asked the FBI and the intelligence committee in the last days whether they're concerned about specific threats in the July 4 period has been no we have no credible specific threat but just read the messaging the appeals to lone wolves go out dozens of times a day and there are manifestos about how to make weapons how to disguise your communications how to hide, how to kill it's all out there and the FBI has been lucky in catching people who seem infected but really nothing more you can say you know this problem is getting worse and we're all sort of waiting at some point some Tunisia is going to happen in Britain or France or America we know it's coming I'm going to only add Ron there's some people who have extraordinary skills in finding terrorists in our government now but sometimes in America people have the right to assume that they're going to be defended against this sort of thing but the American people also need to understand there's something we used to call the grind of counter-terrorism work that is really quite important here and that is the never letting go grind day after day working with the same information being aware aware aware and if that ever falters then I would be more worried than I am now but I do think the United States is a big place and there are a lot of communities that travel in the United States in which I see people that I've never seen there before I'm not suggesting that they're terrorists just because I thought they looked like terrorists what I'm suggesting is the ability to find so many United States is not as easy as everyone thinks there used to be a one of the reasons you can't find somebody is because they're hiding so as a result that grinding work that the FBI is doing that the IC is doing is important to trying to contribute to what DHS and J. Johnson are doing every day Judge Webster did you have a question? Okay great we'll end with Judge Webster, thank you Bill Webster currently with Homeland Security Advisory Council my question is one about perseverance and I can't help but think back to the early days of Desert Shield when we had to beg for permission to land troops our friends the Saudi Arabians who said but you land and you always leave and in that highly tribal area I'm wondering where we stand on their sense of our perseverance and when we come in to help in a sort of piecemeal way and avoiding issues like boots on the ground and other things of this kind do we still have this problem and what can we do about it if we really want to lead them out of this world Thank you Judge you sound like you might have been a director of the CIA at one point I think that is an incredibly important point and question the engagement with people that I've made reference to before must be engagement beyond the turnover of offices that we have so frequently in the United States and our government here in Washington it must be an expression of a commitment that and we in the CIA quite frankly we do this all the time because we do stay all the time, you know that but it's important to many of these countries we deal with to know that no matter how bad it gets that we have the guts to stay with them now we haven't been very good at that over the last number of years it would be my assessment that some of that was reflected in the low attendance at the president's Camp David Accord on Middle East policy and Middle East redirection I don't think you can understate the importance of what you've described I don't think you can understate the importance of every now and then a president in a discreet channel if we can ever do that anymore reassuring the head of that nation that king, that monarch, that president, that prime minister that listen, we know this is getting bad and publicly these things may happen but we're not going away those, if I was asked once I was asked 50 times by Pakistani prime ministers, presidents and chief army staff well when are you leaving I was always able to say well you know I'm not going anywhere and you know the CIA never goes anywhere but I wasn't always able to be that confident with the United States government first of all, every single army officer in Pakistan remembers the famous Pressler amendment that broke it off for a decade so you've hit on something that I think is important to the United States that we must continue to encourage in our people our new people in government re-encouraging the people who are more mature in government and just stay after and stay after I don't think you can underestimate the value of what you've just described David how do we do that when the general public and the president are as you said allergic to this doesn't require the public I'm talking about contacts and commitments at the US government level that does not mean 100,000 US troops I'm talking about the appearance of people when things are bad to say listen, can we help or we need a favor from you those types of things are the things that go far I agree with that and no one is discussing 100,000 troops but nonetheless we have to deal with a US public apart from those elements you're talking about Steve and a congress part of it and an administration and potentially a next administration that does not want to make a commitment on many levels I've been encouraged that a president who passionately wanted to get out of this period of involvement in places like Iraq and Syria realize that it's impossible and as I said at the beginning has basically the right policy I said he's allergic but he is trying to work with Prime Minister Abadi the NSC talks with Ambassador Filey I assume an attempt to coordinate policy and I'll close by remembering something that a Syrian Foreign Minister said after President Reagan our model of the strong president decided to pull American forces out of Beirut in 1983-84 and he said the Americans are short of breath and I think that is when that idea first began to settle into the minds of the people in the Middle East and each subsequent instance of shortness of breath reinforces it and each moment where despite shortness of breath who's shorter breath than Barack Obama he doesn't want to be there but he is there so maybe overtime that adds the idea that we're more persistent than people might think I hope so I wish we had more time we have a lot of other questions but I would like to thank David and Steve and I'll be back sometime. Thank you very much.